Dream 5

My dreams contain fragmentary

facts, swept up in a surreal heap –

I miss the plane but the airport

is a shed in someone’s backyard

and the pumpkins growing there

are as big as tyres.

Every so often a lone image

remains, unsettling strange

and almost beautiful.

This was a young man

playing music  - but his instrument

was a peacock, tail trailing

like a kite’s and he played up and down

the ribs with silver chopsticks.

I didn’t hear the music,

just saw the player and his peacock

pass my window and woke

as shocked as if I’d seen a saintly vision.

It still bothers me, the peacock all stately tail,

colours still vivid against the pale sky

and the musician, in courtly dress,

his chopsticks held like elegant drumsticks.

That small scale of exposed ribs

such unnecessary extravagance

for the silent music. 

Catherine Bateson, 2012

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